Pretty

I’ve seen a number of articles and blogs posted by parents of girls, in which they (usually moms, but some dads) say that so many people comment on how pretty their daughters are, and how they wish they wouldn’t.

Some parents say they think it is shallow or superficial — or even creepy — to comment on their daughter’s looks. Some say strangers come up to them and say “Oh, she’s so beautiful!” and that they would rather they comment on how smart the girl is, or her personality. I’ve also read posts where parents complain that they think that people are overcompensating about some sort of fear of the race of the child, so by commenting on a child’s beauty they are trying to show they are not racist.

And then today, a friend brought her daughter over for a play date, and we were discussing this same topic. She commented on how beautiful Stinkerbelle is, and then felt a little embarassed and apologized. She said she read a study somewhere that stated that parents of girls overwhelmingly comment on another little girl’s looks before anything else, and that she was really trying not to. She mentioned that the study talked about the superficiality, maybe, or that it shows an underlying competitiveness, commenting on another girl’s looks to get justification of your own child’s looks, or some such thing.

There seems to be a lot of apprehension out there about the concept of beauty, and talking about it.

So my friend and I got to talking about it. And I thought, when did it become wrong to tell a little girl she is pretty?

I don’t get it. I mean, I understand that parents have their reasons, and a lot of them are really quite sound in their situations. Fair enough. And I would respect that.

But here’s the thing: what is wrong with a little girl growing up believing she is pretty? What is wrong with loving how she looks?

I thought to myself, all little kids love to look at themselves in the mirror. Vanity is not an issue — they’re too little for that. But they are all beautiful. So why not let them believe it? My thinking is this: It’s going to end soon enough.

As women, we have all been there. We all hit an age, nearing puberty, or even earlier, when we begin to feel ugly. We compare ourselves to others, and we don’t measure up. We are judged mercilessly by our peers. So what is wrong with teaching a little girl, right from the beginning, that she is beautiful?

I’m not saying I would advocate saying a child is beautiful, above all else, and that’s the end of it. Of course, you want to fill your child with confidence on so many levels. But at some point, fairly early on it seems, we leave off commenting on looks. We take great pains to emphasize what our kids are good at, or the successes they have in school, or what they can do well. But we shy away from saying “You are beautiful”. Who says one cannot be pretty, and still be smart? Or athletic? Or good at math? Or play the violin? Why do these things have to be an either/or?

Maybe it’s a flaw with our definition of “beauty”. Why does beauty have to stop at the skin? Why can it not encompass both what is on the inside and what is on the outside?

Why NOT have a little girl grow up believing that she is pretty, and growing in self-confidence, for as long as she can?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as the saying goes. I want my daughter to love how she looks. I want her to be confident as she is growing up that she can be anything she wants, as any parent would. I want her to believe in her abilities, and be happy with who she is, and to know beyond all that how much she is loved.

But I ALSO want her to look in a mirror and, regardless of shape, size, colour or conventional standards, really LOVE what she sees.

I lack positive self-image. I am loathe to get my photo taken. I am painfully self-conscious of my weight. I can tell you every flaw on my person.

I don’t want that for my child.

Dawn French once said that she owed her success to her self-confidence. And that a lot of that came from her father. Every day, her father would tell her how beautiful she was, and how brilliant, and how loved. And she just grew up believing it was so. Now, Dawn is a big woman — not the conventional standard of beauty — but she is undeniably beautiful. She is funny and brilliant and successful and loved. AND beautiful. What an amazing package.

My daughter right now is one such amazing package. I never want that to end. I love to see her look at herself and comment on her pretty hair or her pretty dress. I hope she can take to heart as she grows the comments about her beautiful almond eyes and her sweet dimple and her winning smile. I want her to be able to hold onto that self-love, and package it up with a passion for whatever she becomes passionate about, and a confidence in her abilities in whatever she becomes good at, and a joy in doing what she really loves.

I want her to be confident in the beautiful, amazing package that we see. And to see it for herself, too.

So I will continue to tell her, every day, how beautiful she is. And I will agree with whoever tells me she is beautiful, too.